Interactive Digital announced Adaptive Audio V5 at SpeechTek last month. Adaptive Audio is one of the neatest things since adding speech recognition to IVR because it allows an IVR application to adapt to the skills and preferences of a caller in real-time. That is pretty cool. It’s so cool that last year I wrote one of my Voice Value columns in Speech Technology Magazine on it – Interactive Digital: The Effective Use of Adaptation in VUI Design.

It looks like it is so far so good in some of the few acquisition stories of the waning summer. This week Convergys announced the close of their acquisition of Intervoice, and things so far look smooth. Unlike some of Intervoice’s own acquisitions (think Brite, Edify), there isn’t a huge product overlap of installed base customers between Convergys and Intervoice. Although both provide self-service and contact centers, the bulk of Intervoice’s base is enterprise, and for Convergys hosted, so each strengthen those two branches of the business. Intervoice brings with it a direct sales force, which Convergys was sorely lacking. Combined, they will have a very impressive professional services organization with even more expertise in speech than they had separately. In addition, the billing, rating and charging solutions that Convergys has is certainly value-add to Intervoice’s base, and if you dig down into their solution stack there are several nuggets on both sides that will strengthen the whole portfolio.

I’m sure it is not just that I work in the contact center industry that makes me particularly aware of the failings of them. We all have our pet peeves. Two of my newest are in the category of companies that embrace newer technology, but apply it wrong. So for example, earlier this year I blogged about CapitolOne using speech technology to ask for my credit card number, not using speech for any other part of the application, and then transferring me to the agent, without the information they asked for. That has to be Numero Uno on my peeve list as they used speech, but not basic CTI. But I’m sounding like a broken record here.

No, automated contact center agents can’t feel, even though they sound real, but Voxify automated agents deployed in the hospitality segment certainly “felt” the effects of hurricanes Gustav and Ike days before they made landfall. In a press release that Voxify put out today they talked about the peaks in unplanned call volumes that they saw days and weeks ahead of recent hurricanes for both airlines and hotels.